page_title: Sylvester H. Roper
section_title: Inventor
hierarchical_section_title: Sylvester H. Roper / Inventor
caption_attribution_description: English: Sylvester H. Roper handbill advertising "The Greatest Mechanical Exhibition in the World". Circa 1870. From The Smithsonian Collection of Automobiles and Motorcycles, page 13. Smithsonian Institution Press. 1968. LOC 68-9579
context_page_description: Sylvester Howard Roper was an American inventor and a pioneering builder of early automobiles and motorcycles from Boston, Massachusetts. In 1863 he built a steam carriage, one of the earliest automobiles. The Roper steam velocipede of 1867–1869 may have been the first motorcycle, for which he was inducted into the Motorcycle Hall of Fame in 2002. He is also the inventor of the shotgun choke and a revolver repeating shotgun.
context_section_description: About the same time he came to Boston, Roper invented his Handstitch Sewing Machine. In 1861 he invented a hot air engine and filed several patents for a hot air engines. He eventually succeeded in building engines ranging from 1 to 4 HP. In 1869 over 200 roper's air engines were in operation. Roper worked for the Springfield Armory during the Civil War. Roper's work eventually came to the attention of other inventors and engineers of the area, including Elias Howe, Alvan Clark, Christopher Miner Spencer. Roper was observed driving his steam carriage around Boston in 1863. One such 1863 carriage went to the Henry Ford Museum.
  Roper invented the first shotgun choke, short tubes that could be threaded onto, or removed from, the outside of the shotgun barrel to vary the shot spread to suit different targets and ranges. Roper and Christopher Miner Spencer were granted a joint patent for a repeating shotgun mechanism on April 4, 1882. Later, on April 21, 1885, Roper alone obtained a patent for an improved shotgun loading mechanism. Roper and his son, Charles, designed a factory producing screw making equipment, which Charles Roper continued to manage after his father's death.
caption: Handbill for Roper steam demonstration.
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